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Delta City Council voted recently to reject an application to redevelop the aging Tsawwassen Town Centre mall.

It was the second proposal to redevelop the site by New Westminster, B.C.-based Century Group to receive council’s thumbs-down.

The first rezoning application called for redevelopment of the mall to proceed in five phases:1,433 housing units; a new public library; a new Thrifty Foods grocery store; and a mix of low-and highrise buildings up to 24 storeys high.

After it was rejected, Century Group went back to the drawing board and drew up a new, scaled-back proposal for developing just part of the site.

To proceed in two phases, it called for “about 600” units of housing; reduced building height, whereby the tallest building is18 storeys; donated space for a community clinic; a larger Thrifty’s; and approximately 17,000 square feet of new retail.

It too was nixed in fall 2025.

Council members said they didn’t want to see towers, that the plan was out of scale for Tsawwassen, and that they wanted to see a development plan for the entire site, not just part of it.

Tsawwassen is one of three distinct communities that comprise the sprawling City of Delta, in the southwestern corner of the Lower Mainland, the others being North Delta and Ladner.

Until the 1960s, when a new tunnel, new roads and a new ferry terminal connected it to the rest of the region, Delta was a farming and fishing village. But the new transportation infrastructure ended Delta’s isolation and its population jumped.

Although Tsawwassen hasn’t experienced the amount of development seen in other parts of the Lower Mainland, it is no stranger to new building.

In 2024, Delta City Council approved a new development in North Delta of

nearly 900 homes in towers up to 32 storeys.

And Century Group has two new developments in Tsawwassen itself.

The Journal of Commerce made several attempts to contact Century Group to ask if it planned to make another application to Delta, but received no answer by press time.

Vancouver developer and retired architect Michael Geller says council made the right decision to reject the second proposal.

“It’s out of scale for Tsawwassen,” says Geller. “It’s wrong for a low-rise community.”

Redevelopment of the mall is a good idea if it’s done with a broader mix of housing and retail, he says. 

“People are looking for housing choices,” says Geller. “However, this project struck me as ‘brutal.’ A more appropriate approach would be mid-rise housing of four to eight storeys.”

Geller says the problem with Century Group’s proposal isn’t just height, but also character.

“Big, bulky red brick buildings are not what I think of when I think of Tsawwassen,” he says. “Tsawwassen has a unique character with respect to scale, age and green space. It’s important for new buildings to respect that.”

Erick Villagomez, a lecturer at the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning, says the councillors’ concerns about the project being out of scale are shorthand for deeper worries about the psychological and visual shock of the plans.

Like Geller, Villagomez, says the sticking point is not just the height of some of the towers.

“Tall buildings are possible, but they need to be done really well, with sensitivity to their surroundings,” Villagomez says. “They need lots of open space for them to work in community like Tsawwassen.”

Villagomez says projects like the proposed mall redevelopment are recent milestones in urban history.

“Traditionally, city forms have evolved gradually and more slowly compared to what is happening now,” he says. “Communities are unsure of how to handle all the new demands that are being placed on them.

“Tsawwassen and similar outlying communities in the Lower Mainland know they have to change. The question facing them is how to change.

“Retaining community identify is important. They don’t want to walk up from the beach to something that looks like downtown Vancouver.

“This is a good opportunity for the City of Delta and the Century Group to show what can be done.”